Three years of black holes and “yo momma” jokes

The current consensus is that the Oort Cloud is comprised of donut crumbs dropped by yo momma. [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]

My blogging software informed me this morning that this blog is three years old today! Though that’s hardly old even by blogging standards, it feels like a long time to me. When I started this blog, it was called “Science Vs. Pseudoscience”, and it was connected to a class I taught by the same name. Since I was forcing my students to write essays, I thought I should be required to do the same. As a result, the first incarnation of the site was very much focused on skepticism, pseudoscience, and debunkery. (Spellchecker says “debunkery” is not a word, but I say fie upon it.)

Since starting the site, I went from being a college professor to being unemployed, but also from having about 10 readers per day (if I posted something on that day) to several hundred unique visitors on a good day. Thanks to the blog and friends I’ve made through writing here, I’ve gained a lot of chances to write for other publications: Slate, BBC Future, Nautilus, and of course Ars Technica, where I’ve been contributing for nearly two years.